German GPL defender claims legal victory

Open-source programmer Harald Welte said Thursday he won a civil court case in Germany centered on the General Public License (GPL). The license governs many open-source projects and permits anyone to use software covered by it, but requires that companies incorporating GPL software make the underlying source code available.

Welte has had smaller legal successes when trying to force companies using GPL software to comply with its terms, but this is the first outright lawsuit victory, he said on his blog.

"Today I have received news that we've won the first regular civil court case on the GPL in Germany. This is really good news, since so far we've only had a handful of preliminary injunctions been granted (and an appeal case against an injunction), but not a regular civil trial."